For many, this is a time to look back at the past year and prepare for the coming one. But President Park Geun-hye may well be denied this year-end serenity, as she is struggling with a raging scandal surrounding the leak of Blue House documents and allegations of influence-peddling by her former and current aides.

Recent opinion polls showed that Park’s endorsement ratings have dropped to their lowest level since the Sewol ferry disaster in April and the consequent bungled designation of nominees for prime minister.

Approval ratings of the chief executive go up and down, but what should be noted is that the figure in one recent survey plunged to 37 percent ― the first time that it has fallen below the 40 percent mark since Park took office about two years ago.

What is inflicting further pain on the president is the fact that she has begun losing support even from her core support groups, including voters in the southeastern regions and the elderly.

These latest developments show that Park’s presidency is in its gravest crisis so far ― and all this on the doorstep of a new year, which will be the third full calendar year of her five-year tenure.

Park and her aides have no one to blame but themselves because the public sentiment has worsened due to their excessively complacent and self-righteous attitude in coping with the scandal.

When the scandal broke through a newspaper report of a leaked Blue House internal report, Park ― in her usual imperious manner ― dismissed all allegations about her aides and younger brother as worthless rumors. She should have stopped there, but went on to say that she had “nothing to fear” and that she would never be swayed.

Indeed, the ongoing intensive investigation by state prosecutors has pointed to little legal wrongdoing on the president’s part. It is also highly likely that the allegations about influence-peddling by Chung Yoon-hoi, the former aide, and Park Ji-man, the president’s brother, and conflicts between the two will not be substantiated.

Nevertheless, the scandal is not something the president can put aside as another piece of political rubbish.

First of all, the case started with the leak of a Blue House document, which was authored by a police officer who had been working for the presidential office’s unit responsible for monitoring relatives of and people close to the president.

As it turned out later, the officer smuggled more than 100 pages of similar documents out of the Blue House. To make things worse, one of his colleagues committed suicide after undergoing questioning by prosecutors.

Perhaps dealing greater political damage to President Park was the fact that her own brother and a former longtime aide had to go through questioning by prosecutors.

The scenes of the two walking into the prosecutors’ office surrounded by reporters and photographers reminded people of the relatives and associates of recent former presidents who were put behind bars for influence-peddling and corruption. We remember vividly that Park’s predecessors became early lame ducks when such scandals began hitting their presidency.

It is unfortunate that Park is unable ― or unwilling ― to learn a lesson from the past cases and is sticking to her closed-door, self-righteousness operation of the administration, which in turn generates rumors and speculations. This darkens the prospects for the three years remaining in her presidency.